Girls Will Be Girls by JoAnn Deak

The three-year-old I care for has already had girls at preschool tell her the clothes she was wearing weren’t cute and other girls have told her they don’t want to be her friend. At my previous nanny job the five-year-old girl in Kindergarten often came home crying because a girl in her class would make fun of her. And years ago I cared for anorexic girls who thought the normal curves of puberty made them fat.

This is the best book I have yet to read on understanding, raising, supporting, and working with girls. Growing up can be very difficult for a girl in our culture and Dr. JoAnn Deak, a well known school psychologist, educator, speaker, and author offers solutions to the most common problems facing girls today in her book, Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident And Courageous Daughters.

Some of the problems discussed in this book include: cliques, the mother and daughter relationship, the societal pressure to be ultra slim when the teen years creates curves, how to deal with sexuality among teens, and how to cope with the mood swings and hormonal adjustments of menstruation. Plus, there is an entire chapter discussing the role of fathers in their daughters’ lives.

The book uses both research and real life situations to explain the solutions to raising confident girls today. I highly recommend reading Girls Will Be Girls for anyone raising or working with young girls.

You can easily buy “Girls Will Be Girls” by clicking the title in the review or by clicking the photo or link below. Don’t forget to stop by next Saturday for another book review.